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Left hand ulnar nerve
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Filip
Posts: 403
Joined: Apr. 23 2006
From: Paris
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 Left hand ulnar nerve
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Hi all,
I have some problems with the ulnar nerve on my left hand. As a consequence, part of my arm from elbow below, including pinky and ring fingers, often get numb even if I don't do anything. When I play the guitar, I notice the lack of strength and precision. Although I can still play, I think I lost a bit of skills.
I went to see a doctor and he advised to try not to bend the arm too much, and not to play the guitar for two months and then go see him again.
Did anyone have similar experience, or you know of similar one?
Cheers
P.S. I don't know exactly what have caused the damage, but it is not the guitar playing (I don't play that much, just as a hobby). Probably it has to do with my desk at work, but I will still see. Anyway, I think it is not so worrying, at least not right now, but it affects a little.
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Date Jul. 29 2014 9:20:15
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Left hand ulnar nerve (in reply to Filip)
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I could show you how to completely release muscles in neck and shoulder blades by treating according receptor points. However, it should be more useful to remove the problem of those cramped muscles causally.
That muscle complex is usually / largely tensioned because of:
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Imbalance of front and rear apparatus, with front muscles like of stomach and breast being shortened and their counter parts on the back being thin and slack.
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The imbalance resulting in a bend-over posture ( later hunchback), which will be countered by neck muscles enhanced pulling back of the head.
With the constant pulling of the head the neck muscles thicken and shorten. Which again results in pressure on nerves emitting from upper spine.
So, what could be most useful to do?
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Shorten your backs muscles. ->
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Train your front neck / throat muscles.
Lying on your back, pull your chin strongly towards chest. However, without lifting your back head too much. The back of your head should stay hovering very closely over the ground / mattress.
Keep the chin pulled while watching out to:
- not press your jaws.
- not engage / lift your shoulders from ground.
Focus on contracting the throat only. Do so for as long as you can. When your head starts shivering, you know to be on the right way.
When finished, your head will feel as if it was weightless.
Repeat the exercise twice or three times that day. Don´t do next day. Only execute every second day.
You will sense very soon how it contributes to a straight posture, how your neck / shoulderblade region muscles will normalize and lastly, the appealing effect of your throat becoming strong and muscular, with besides double chins being reduced too.
Ruphus
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Date Jul. 31 2014 10:22:41
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rombsix
Posts: 7805
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon
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RE: Left hand ulnar nerve (in reply to Leñador)
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quote:
You just had a hand surgery not too long ago, rough going man my thoughts are with you.
Yeah, if the exercises/brace/lifestyle modifications don't fix this, then I won't go down the surgical path again. Of course, the operation on my LEFT wrist helped with the ganglion, but the the cyst has since come back and I have pain in my left wrist again. It is NOT as bad as before the operation, so I consider the surgery to have been a partial success, but in general my function in the left wrist is still limited (cannot do push-ups, cannot play complex stuff that requires stretching / working out of the left wrist, etc.). I also had LASIK on my eyes in 2011, and now I have dry eyes (especially with sleep deprivation) and my refractive errors have come back. The xerophthalmia is NOT debilitating by any means, but I never had issues with dry eyes before that surgery. I can still see quite reasonably without glasses, so I think having 5 years now without eyeglasses is considered a very reasonable outcome of the surgery.
I think I've had it for the most part when it comes to surgical interventions at this stage unless they are for serious conditions. I think the left wrist ganglion and the refractive errors in retrospect were not "serious conditions", so I might have gotten away with just NOT getting the operations done, but I cannot reverse time.  If I cannot fix the RIGHT cubital tunnel syndrome, then I am going to just take the plunge:
1- File my right hand nails all the way down
2- Grow my left hand nails
3- Flip the nut on my guitar
4- Flip the strings
5- Relearn flamenco as a southpaw
I'm not kidding.
Maybe I'll have faster picado doing it left-handed.
_____________________________
Ramzi
http://www.youtube.com/rombsix
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Date Jan. 9 2017 1:08:24
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Left hand ulnar nerve (in reply to rombsix)
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quote:
If I cannot fix the RIGHT cubital tunnel syndrome, then I am going to just take the plunge:
1- File my right hand nails all the way down
2- Grow my left hand nails
3- Flip the nut on my guitar
4- Flip the strings
5- Relearn flamenco as a southpaw
Ramzi, don't flip the nut and strings on your guitar. Just turn it upside down as it is already strung and play it as a southpaw with the strings upside down, just like Elizabeth Cotten played the guitar. The great blues and folk singer Elizabeth Cotten played the guitar left-handed with the strings upside down. It was, and still is, known as "Cotten Picking." Elizabeth Cotten wrote and recorded the well-known folk song "Freight Train."
Hope you don't have to do it, but if you do, your audience will watch in amazement as you perform a solea' left-handed with the guitar upside down. You will play tremolo with the melody on the bass strings while thumb-stroking the trebles. Accolades will pour in, you will be written up in music reviews, and just as Brigitte Bardot became Manitas de Plata's lover, you will have your pick of young femme fatales eager to be at your side (and in your bed) as you play your unique brand of flamenco. Not a bad trade-off if it has to be made.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 9 2017 2:17:25
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Left hand ulnar nerve (in reply to rombsix)
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I am uncertain as to the exact medical details, but I will offer a personal story, meaning to shed a ray of hope for people with nerve injuries.
Somewhere around 2004 or 2005 I began to experience brief occasions of sharp pain in the spine of the neck. When it struck it was enough to bring tears to my eyes for several seconds. It was a little worrying because part of my job was to supervise a radar operating crew during missions, which cost millions of dollars to carry out. I stood behind the seated crew and looked at computerized displays. Episodes of being unable to see clearly could have been a serious problem, but in the event it never was.
At least once a week I flew the fifty miles from one end of Kwajalein Atoll to the other, and back again aboard a relatively cramped commuter plane. Turning my head in an unaccustomed way as I tried to settle into my seat, I felt and heard a brief "crunching" in my neck, accompanied by very sharp pain. I dreaded possible further effects. Instead, episodes of neck pain became less frequent, and eventually subsided altogether.
Accompanying the neck pain was numbness in left hand fingers 3 and 4 (pinky and ring, meñique y anular). That's the reason the "ulnar nerve" title of this thread attracted my attention. The numbness was bad enough to seriously interfere with guitar playing. I finally gave up for at least four or five years.
After I retired at the end of 2009 I had plenty of time on my hands to travel and do whatever I wanted. About 6 years ago I got out one of my guitars and started fooling around. Left hand pinky was so numb it wouldn't even go the the correct string, much less be of practical use in playing. But I decided to try playing and see where it would go.
Long story short, the left hand kept improving slowly, but fast enough for me to stay interested. After six years of work I'm back to playing well enough to really enjoy it. There's a great classical guitar scene here in Austin. I'm thinking of signing up for lessons with a local concert artist (a winner of the Guitar Foundation of America contest a few years ago), and to get used to playing for others again.
Talking it over with my brother the M.D. we theorized that a bone spur in my neck may have resulted from an old motorcycle injury. The crunch aboard the airplane may have broken off part of the spur that was causing nerve damage. I was surprised by the regenerative capacity of the peripheral nervous system. There might have been some brain re-wiring involved.
Bottom line: I have been surprised and very pleased to experience almost complete recovery from a disabling nerve injury, as a result of good luck in accidentally busting up the bone spur (we theorize), and persistence in re-training the affected fingers.
As usual for me, the biggest obstacle to overcome in learning to play again was impatience. Many times I had to tell myself to slow down and get it under control. Eventually it paid off.
So hang in there guys! Your body is capable of great feats of repairing itself.
RNJ
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Date Jan. 24 2017 5:59:00
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